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Posted on 08/17/2007 8:19:28 AM PDT by poiuqwer
A pair of German physicists claim to have broken the speed of light - an achievement that would undermine our entire understanding of space and time.
According to Einstein's special theory of relativity, it would require an infinite amount of energy to propel an object at more than 186,000 miles per second.
However, Dr Gunter Nimtz and Dr Alfons Stahlhofen, of the University of Koblenz, say they may have breached a key tenet of that theory.
The pair say they have conducted an experiment in which microwave photons - energetic packets of light - travelled "instantaneously" between a pair of prisms that had been moved up to 3ft apart.
Being able to travel faster than the speed of light would lead to a wide variety of bizarre consequences.
For instance, an astronaut moving faster than it would theoretically arrive at a destination before leaving.
The scientists were investigating a phenomenon called quantum tunnelling, which allows sub-atomic particles to break apparently unbreakable laws.
Dr Nimtz told New Scientist magazine: "For the time being, this is the only violation of special relativity that I know of."
Where did you get that picture of me? I like it. :-)
Oh for heavens sake, everyone knows the answer to that one!. Put your thinking cap on, I'm not going to give you all the answers.....
I'm still working on correcting the informational errors I found posted in #s 12 and 29....
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THANX. To me, that was the most beautiful of all the Enterprises. Very sleek. Nice lines. And a little more believable than the original. The original was nice, too.
Obviously due to global warming... And it was Bush's fault. He had Rove plan it and Cheney do it from a secure location.
Mark
Does gravity happen faster than the speed of light...
It is this fact which causes all of the strange behaviour of objects moving at near-light speeds that you may have heard about with respect to relativity.
I always wondered how that jives with the doppler shift in light.
Mark
Perhaps they could try to cool beer to absolute zero, recreate the speed of light experiment, and do the matter teleport thing (that was an electron, sort of, wasn't it?)?
I'm just an old country boy at heart, but this argument always seems to come down to "because Einstein said so" with the implication that the listener is dumber than Einstein, so it must be accepted.
It seems to me that Einstein solved one paradox, but created another, thus solving nothing. If there is no established zero point of movement in the universe, and there's not, then it is quite easy to demonstrate that C can be (indeed must be) exceeded in reference to a given point of reference.
The bending of space is brought on as an explanation of this, but a vacuum is not a medium. For it to 'bend', matter must change in some way. What is the impetus for matter to do this?
It could be easily understood that C is a maximum for two objects repelling each other, but I just don't get the reasoning on there being a maximum speed on an object without the restriction of a medium.
I can't make your statement that light leaves a moving star at C in all directions conform with the idea that an electron somehow knows the speed of its neutron.
Assuming C is a maximum, wouldn't atoms cease to exist long before the neutron reached C, as the electrons fell out of orbit?
Like I said, I'm just an old country boy at heart, and just see the emperor the way he is.
Yes, it proved the EPR conjecture would be true and disproved Einstein’s claim that it could not happen. It has also been proven that no information can be transmitted across this communication channel.
It’s just a multiverse correlation.
Of course, I assumed the context of Euclidean Geometry for my example.
Photos have relativistic mass. They just do not have classical ; i.e. "rest" mass.
There was a young lady of Wight,
Who traveled much faster than light,
She departed one day,
In a relative way,
And arrived on the previous night.
It’s as though I were to say that according to historical record, “all cats weight less than 50 lbs.” And someone starts talking about how the gravitational conversion of the weight on Jupiter is a clear contradiction. Yes, in this case, and unless specifically stated, I’m talking about Earth weight.
And in the case of the triangle, since I didn’t specifically state another geometry, the default is Euclidean.
But don’t let me deprive some of you the fun of being clever. Here’s another “matter of fact” for you to nah-nah:
“You cannot find a plural-digit integer greater than nine.”
HINT: Don’t let me assume base 10.
Good questions. Shows you’re thinking. Imagine those who thought the Earth was flat. When you accept the fact that the surface cannot extend forever (i.e. that would be infinite mass) it then becomes trivial to visualize an edge, like a table. But then wouldn’t all the ocean water flow off? A paradox!
The trick with relativity is to understand what the definition of speed means. It means that we watch one thing moving with respect to another set of equally-spaced distance markers, such as milestones or a measuring tape, and we divide it by the number of ticks we count with a clock. Physical laws cannot depend on such thing as “space” and “time” because we cannot see or measure them. All we can do is count how two events seem to simultaneous reoccur; such as when the moving thing is close to a marker, or when a second hand on a clock runs a complete circle. And we see them via photons.
Relativity says that when things move very fast, the distance between markers change and the time between clock ticks change. So of course, the results of calculating speed will change too.
When you are close to the Earth’s surface, it appear flat. When you are close to the spacetime surface (i.e. slow, short distances, and away from massive objects), it appears flat, linear, and intuitive too.
The endangered special pseudo-theory of relativity is on the ropes as evidence grows that an intelligent entity causes particles to arrive before they leave.
OK, if you say so, there are cats on Jupiter.
(citation needed)
. ...Don’t let me assume base 10.
I won't, because when you "assume" something, you are likely to make an ASS of U and ME!!
(chortle, chortle)
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